Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Blue spruce root ball
David Smith
I was asked four months ago if I would be able to do anything with a small root ball from a blue spruce tree. I thought why not give it a try. After rough turning it I put it into a paper bag and four months later I turned this. Its finished with tung oil and measures about six inches in diameter.
Re: Blue spruce root ball
Paul Grenier
beautiful
Beautiful David
Outstanding! That's a gem!
Re: Blue spruce root ball
David Smith
Thank you for your compliments. It looks good on my cabinet in the house but I'm going to offer it to the neighbor that gave it to me. What I learned is that there is potential in almost anything, including me and root balls.
Re: Blue spruce root ball
John K Jordan
Wow, that has a lot of character! I'll bet your neighbor will be excited.
I've found that root balls from other species are good. I cut big chunks from a huge cherry root ball that were extremely dense and fine grained - acted like exotics. And Lissi Oland gave me one from a box elder with more bright red in it than I've ever seen in box elder - and for some reason it has held the color while "normal" box elder has faded.
JKJ
Re: Blue spruce root ball
Don Stephan
How did you remove all the soil, small rocks, . . . - pressure washer? wouldn't that play havoc on bark?
Re: Blue spruce root ball
David Smith
The outside of the root ball was covered in dirt and rocks, I used compressed air, a brush and a pick to clean the ball as thoroughly as I could. Because the tree was relatively young there wasn't any rock or dirt inside of it. The bark was pretty solid and stayed adhered to the ball very nicely, I only had to put CA glue in one crack between knots and on one spot to keep the bark from falling off. I suspect the pitch held things together when I rough turned it.